Children of the Shadows
by Hitomi Zotz
Summary: The daughter of the Count of Kvatch is forced to flee with her twins on her wedding night from the Dark Brotherhood. Her daughter finds herself caught up in the curse of the Gray Fox whilst her son drifts to the very Brotherhood who ruined his family. 10 years later they find themselves caught in the Oblivion Crisis but one thing is certain Lucien LaChance does not leave loose ends
1. Prologue

_So you wish to summon the __Dark Brotherhood__? You wish to see someone dead? Pray, child. Pray, and let the __Night Mother__ hear your plea. You must perform that most profane of rituals - the Black Sacrament. Then wait, child, for the Dread Father __Sithis__ rewards the patient. You will be visited by a representative of the Dark Brotherhood. So begins a contract bound in blood._

It was a Middas in Frostfall on the year 3E 423, the last Middas of the frosty month and the wedding day of Count Goldwine's daughter, Lyra Goldwine. Once the subject of much scandal ten years ago, Lyra had returned from a visit to the Imperial City in disgrace, pregnant to an unknown father at the age of eighteen, she had been sent to a temple of Kynareth where she had given birth to twins, a boy and a girl. The death of Countess Goldwine to a swift but fatal disease had made the Count relent his anger for his daughter and request her return. At the behest of his sons he had consented to allowing his grandchildren to return with Lyra and welcomed them to the family.

Now at last the Count's desire to see his daughter properly wed was being granted, to the middle-aged, modestly wealthy nobleman Lord Siegfried. Count Ormellius Goldwine stood waiting by the door for her arrival as the musicians played a lively tune in anticipation of the bride. Ormellius was nervous, hiding his twitching hands behind his back as he glanced at the untouched bronze goblets of wine longingly before catching the eye of his eldest son Lucan who stood at the top of the grand hall jesting with the smiling groom Siegfried. 'He's pleasant enough,' Ormellius thought in an attempt to assure himself, 'not handsome but not ugly either but she could see past that and learn to love him.'

The hall was packed with eager eyed courtiers, all sneaking glances at the open door Ormellius stood near, hoping to spy the shy bride first. The women were in their finest dresses with their most prized jewels on display, each hoping to outdo the other, and many hoping to impress a wealthy bachelor. The men had made an equal effort, hoping to win a future bride for themselves or garner notice from the Count. Even now on what should be a day, or night rather, of love and happiness politics were at work, and Ormellius was wise enough to know that the majority of Kvatch's elite had not come to wish his daughter happiness but to instead gain his favour.

Upstairs away from the gossip, music and bright, flickering candle lights Lyra studied her pallid reflection as her daughter fiddled with her small, silver tiara and her son scratched at his waistcoat with a scowl. Lyra had felt unease since the morning and now that the sun had descended it had turned into dread. She had ordered her handmaidens from her room in frustration just twenty minutes ago, thinking that the peace from them might calm her but it had only served to make her anxious. Something was going to happen tonight, she could feel it like she felt the soft autumn air against her cheek, soft and yet foreboding, a danger not quite formed.

She looked behind her in the mirror, the room seemed small, claustrophobic even with only one minute, arched window and a single door for escape, one could be trapped here very easily. She fixed the ring of silver and white roses on her head, smoothed down her golden brown waves and turned away from the mirror at last. She needed out of the room, perhaps space would calm her down.

"Come children," she said, trying to sound happy and failing, "it's time to go." She extended a slender hand out to each of them, her son Thomas accepted it quickly whilst Alexandra glanced at it with disinterest before looking up at her mother suspiciously.

"Why are you marrying Seefred?" the ten-year-old queried impetuously, unable to pronounce her future step-father's name correctly.

"Because he is a kind man and he will treat us well," Lyra answered sincerely as she shook her hand at Alexandra impatiently. She could almost feel the walls shrinking around them and was convinced the shadows in the room were getting longer and darker.

"He's not our father," Alexandra commented boldly with a look of distain.

"No," Lyra admitted as she thought briefly of a man she had tried to forget, "but we have discussed that."

"Daddy's lowborn," Thomas commented cheerfully as he smiled up at his mother, "and no one can know."

"That's right," Lyra remarked quickly as Alexandra took her hand at last. Between the hands of her twins Lyra felt a further rush of dread, and her grip upon them turned tight. She loved them more than anything or anyone in the world, Alexandra was so brave and there was not much that got by her, whilst Thomas was loving and trusting, together they were stronger, stronger than their mother.

Lyra escorted them out to the stone corridor knowing that if she lingered any longer her paranoid father would send a maid or even one of her brothers up for her. She could not blame him for worrying that she would not go ahead with this marriage; she had waited ten years after all.

Lyra felt herself tensing as her palms began to sweat. She forced herself to take a step forward, which wasn't easy in her high heeled, silver and white laced shoes. She looked beautiful but there was nothing practical about her bridal attire. She jumped again; certain she had seen a shadow move up ahead near the door.

"What's wrong mummy?" Thomas queried as he looked up at her with worry.

"Nothing," she answered quickly, "I've just turned the wrong way that's all." She turned around, rerouting her children in the opposite direction and hurried them into a brisk walk.

"Aren't we going to the hall?" Alexandra questioned suspiciously. "This goes to Tilly and Fiona's rooms."

"It's just another way to go," Lyra dismissed her daughter's question as her shoes clacked off the stone slabs noisily. 'I'm being foolish,' she scorned herself as they reached the steps and began their descent, 'and scaring the children too, honestly Lyra get a hold of yourself you're attending your wedding not your funeral.'

Alexandra's scream was her warning. She ducked to avoid the blade slashing out of the darkness and immediately herded her children to the left with a cry. She kicked off her shoes and shrieked, "run!" She pulled her children up a narrow hall to the left, glancing over her shoulder just once to see the shadow that pursued them.

"Mummy look!" Thomas shouted in horror.

She looked ahead; another stood there, a living shadow, a being hidden in black cloth from head to toe with a sickle in one hand. She pushed through a door in the right, shoving her children in first before slamming the door behind them. Yes, she had guessed right, this was Tilly's room; at least she still had some luck with her! "Under the bed children quick," she commanded quietly, "there's a trapdoor in the floor, move swiftly now my babes." She urged them down, crawling after them under the single bed, knowing they could only have seconds left.

Her heart was thumping wildly against her, her breaths were tight and short and the sweat lashed down her staining her now wrinkled white dress. She had no time to think, to wonder what was going on or why, she could only act. She moved fast, grasping the iron handle in the middle of the stone slabs under the bed and pulling it up with a grunt. A square piece of the floor popped up and with a groan she pushed it forward, wincing at the grinding sound it made as it scraped along the floor. She heard the door being kicked in as she pushed Thomas down and then Alexandra before following after them ungracefully.

They landed in the basement below uncomfortably but uninjured, their land softened by the pile of straw stacked there. "Quickly, to your feet!" Lyra snapped as she pushed herself upright, cursing as her dress tripped her up and Alexandra's seemed to envelope her like a tent. She grabbed them both once more, her grip tight enough to hurt, and hurried them up the three basement steps and through the door into the wine cellar.

The twins were too frightened to question what was going on and remained as quiet as mice as their mother hastened them past dusty bottles and rows of barrels, leading them into the larder room and then finally out and into the path of a startled manservant. "Not a word," Lyra ordered him sternly before she spied the side door where the waste was thrown out and urged her children out through it. She paused just once, wasting a few precious seconds to seize a knife used for chopping carrots to slice a few inches of her dress before she slipped the knife into the silver and pearl belt about her waist.

Outside it was a cold dusk, frost shone silvery white on the grass, and the sky was crisp and clear, a velvety purple black dotted with the vibrant constellations, which parted for the moons Secunda and Masser. It was dark, the torchlight came from the castle itself and where iron posts stood high on the main path leading up to the castle, that would be too obvious and dangerous a path to take.

"Mum," Alexandra hissed out as her green eyes went wide.

Lyra looked to where her daughter did, to a small group of trees out of which three shadowed figures stepped. 'They're determined,' she thought in horror. If she could get out of the city's walls and off the bluff there would be plenty of trees to hide in but right now they were trapped. She turned from the figures and ran, dragging her horrified children with her. She prayed the shadows might conceal them as she hastened to a barn up ahead wondering if they could hide there or perhaps find weapons or help.

They hurried in and Lyra immediately urged her twins up the wooden ladder to the floor of hay above. She did not tell them to hide or be silent, it was unnecessary and Alexandra had enough wit to pull her brother deep into the hay with them. Lyra looked about with wild eyes for a weapon, seizing the best thing she could find, a scythe left harmlessly against the wooden wall. Perhaps she could fight them off. 'No,' she thought to herself with despair, 'you know who they are Lyra, the Dark Brotherhood, they are skilled assassins and if they want you dead then soon you will be.' Still she wouldn't go without a fight and as long as Alexandra and Thomas were spared then that was all that mattered.

She smelt the smoke before she saw it and whirled around in alarm. There at the doorway, it was billowing thick and black as the walls turned amber and then red as flames started to climb up them. 'They mean to burn us alive!' she thought in horror as she turned to scream for the children. She shrieked as a small ball of fire hissed down, licking at her face as it did, immediately burning her right cheek and part of her brow. The roof was on fire, so was the back of the barn!

"Alex, Thomas!" she called out in horror as she tossed the scythe to one side and ran to the ladder. She was stopped as another large ball of fire crashed down with a plank of wood, causing her to halt and raise her arm up in an attempt to shield her face. She could hear them screaming as her eyes began to water and she began to cough on the smoke. "CHILDREN! she screamed in alarm.

"Mummy!" Thomas sobbed out. He could not see, there was hay and smoke everywhere, burning his lungs and his eyes. He had lost Alexandra as he scrambled through the hay in a panic. He could hear the roar of the fire, feeling it stretching out to him, threatening him as he tried to veer away from it and only seemed to crawl into more. There was a creak before the wood beneath him gave way and he fell with a loud scream. The wood shattered beneath him putting splinters in his hands as his arms were burned by the flames spreading around him.

Lyra spotted her son's silhouette in the wreckage and ran towards him, seizing him up just before the fire caught him. She clutched him close to her chest and whirled about the building in alarm, searching for Alexandra. "ALEXANDRA!" she shouted before a coughing spasm took her. She could see a potential exit, a hole in the back on the barn that the flames were threatening to devour. They could only have thirty seconds or so to make it.

"Here mummy!" Alexandra staggered up from another pile of debris, her face black with smoke, her lip bloodied and one arm bruised. Lyra rushed towards her, grabbing her by one hand before she jumped through the gap. They heard the wood collapsing behind them as they just made it through. Alexandra bit back a squeal of pain as she felt sparks bite at her back as the fire roared through the wall, devouring it hungrily.

Under the cover of darkness Lyra led her children, down through the city, weaving through buildings as she avoided the main path out of the city. She reached the tall, stone walls of Kvatch at last and let out a gasp as an arrow whizzed past her ear to smash into the stone before her. They were unrelenting in her pursuit, and too many, she would tire whilst their tired would just be replaced. They probably had the entire city surrounded, running was futile and yet she had to try for the sake of her twins.

She moved to the small, iron gate she knew sat in the side of a wall, rusting and forgotten, hidden behind clumps of ivy. She tugged out one of only four keys that could open the gate and hurried to free its lock. It snapped open after some jiggling before the gate gave a creak as she opened it. She pushed her children through before shutting the gate as quietly as she could and snapping on the lock again. It probably would not deter them but with a bit of luck it might annoy the bastards.

On through darkness, they moved blindly down the hill the city dominated, stumbling over rocks and roots and through long, wild grass and small bushes that scratched at them with thorns, spiked leaves and sharp branches. Lyra could heard a river nearby, its current was strong and loud, hopefully they could lose their pursuers there. She saw it up ahead a few meters from the bottom of the hill, a roaring black serpent that coiled lazily about the hill before continuing on.

Pain. It throbbed through her left shoulder as blood spurted from it immediately. The distraction made her trip and fumble, causing her children to stumble uneasily about her. Thomas tripped over a rock; the sudden mistake caused him to slip from her grasp as her shoulder did not allow her arm to stretch out with him. He bounced down the rest of the hill with several yelps and screams and hit the water with a soft splash, inaudible over the river's roar. Lyra and Alexandra screamed and ran to the river as one. When they reached the bank he was already several feet from them, shrieking wildly as he tried to stay afloat, his small body incapable of fighting against the current.

"THOMAS!" Alexandra screamed as she tried to run after her brother but her small legs refused to carry her. "THOMAS!" She could no longer see him in the dark or hear his squeals over the river's raging currents. He was gone, just like that.

Lyra grabbed her daughter as another arrow struck the top of her right thigh with a thwack, either their aim was hampered by the night or they were toying with her. She snapped the arrow with a grimace but left its steel head in, afraid to pull it out and create a wound that would kill her in seconds. "Come on," she ordered Alexandra as she swallowed down a sob. Her son was gone, drowned in seconds and she knew there was no point in attempting to follow after him, it was too dark, the river too strong and fast and they would expect it. The evil bastards who had caused and witnessed it all probably hoped she would run after the river's path making herself an easy target.

They fled into the trees, both of them crying silently as blisters formed on their soles; fresh bruises and cuts came from branches reaching out to them and bushes hindering their path. On and on they ran, aware that their foes were still close behind. It was hours before they slowed their escape, pausing at the edge of a cave to rest. Lyra allowed them only thirty minutes to sit before they began again, zigzagging through trees in an attempt to elude the assassins. There had been no more arrows or shadowy shapes but Lyra did not think they had lost them.

They ran through the night, going until their legs gave way and they had to stop, collapsing in exhaustion for two hours under low growing, leafy boughs. It was as the sun started to rise again that they found a wayshrine. Four tall, white columns with scrolls at their tops and a stained ring of greying white stone that had cracked and broken in places, three platforms of smooth, white limestone formed its base with what looked like a shallow well of white marble at its centre. Lyra staggered to the centre and collapsed at it, placing her arms on its smooth surface and reading the name carved within- Akatosh, it was faint but still audible. Lyra considered it a sign of hope but Alexandra viewed it as a mockery as she hovered near the platform's edge with bitter tears.

Only now did the females notice the cold, adrenaline and fear had overrode the frosty air and the pain their wounds had caused them. Their golden blonde locks were a messy tangle with bits of straw and stray leaves tangled up in them, Lyra's crown of silver and roses was gone, abandoned in the cellar, whilst Alexandra's silver tiara was caught in her hair and pulling at her scalp as it hung at a slant in the back of her long locks. Their dresses were filthy, tattered and torn, stained with muck at the bottom and spattered with drying blood in various places.

Lyra heaved out a sigh of exhaustion, her lips were bloody and sore, her throat was dry and swollen from swallowed sobs and her nose was running. She forced herself to her feet once more as the pale golden sun sneaked through the trees, causing the frost to sparkle like crystals. She pushed her tangled hair back from her face and looked at her daughter with a sad smile, wondering how she could ever get over the loss of her twin, they were two halves of one whole really, opposites in many ways and yet so alike in others. Alexandra was more like her father though she wasn't to know it, sharp minded, not afraid of risks and very bold, whilst Thomas was shy and nervous like his mother, and yet they both had had the same thirst for adventure and excitement in them and now and again they would give into it.

"Let's go my dear," she said as she held out her hand. She wondered if they could go to him, their father, if he could offer them safety. 'Maybe he's behind all this,' she thought coldly, 'ordering my death because I left him. Maybe he learned about his children and wanted revenge because I never told him. I hope that isn't the case, I wanted to tell you Sam, I really did, but...but father would have cast us all out and we'd have died penniless or spent our lives in poverty. It was better they had wealth and prospects than a life on the streets with you. I told them about you though, they know of you, so I hope you're not the one who ordered their mother's death, who effectively caused your own son's death.'

She gritted her teeth as her mouth trembled and she held back a cry. There was no time for grief, they had to run again. They fled through the trees, exiting them to the cool light of the rising sun. It was promising to be a cold but pleasant day, the skies remained clear, now coloured mauve, lilac, rose and pale orange that was gradually changing to a promising pale blue.

After another hour they finally saw a welcome sight, the harbour city of Anvil. The cries of seagulls began to drown out the call of the larks as salt air replaced the smell of pine and oak as they neared the grand city. Its walls and turrets were an impressive sight, the tops of the turrets' clay tiles were a warm shade of orange-brown beneath the morning sun. The chapel of Dibella towered over everything within the walls whilst the lighthouse and castle dominated without, the lighthouse high on its own hill, seated just outside the city by the harbour, and the castle on its own island opposite the lighthouse with a single bridge of stone connecting it to the city.

Lyra let out a scream of pain as the arrow came without warning, it sank deep into the top of her spine causing her to tense up and almost bend back before she shuddered and staggered forward. A second one came just as swiftly, burrowing itself deep in her lower left back, piercing an organ as it went in. Blood came up with her next scream and she knew their job was done, she was going to die. She sank to her knees as an alarmed form hastened towards her, her one witness to her fate apart from her daughter and perhaps her daughter's only hope.

Her watery green eyes rolled up to face the stranger as she lifted her chin as blood seeped down it. He was familiar, how odd for him to be out here so early in the morning and alone. "Count..." she rasped.

He looked down at her in horror and then recognition. "Lady Lyra!" he cried out.

She raised a trembling hand and tried to point towards the teary and shaking Alexandra. There was no time for explanations, just perhaps a few seconds to wring a promise. "Corvus," she dropped the formalities, no time for them either, "my daughter is in danger, please. She is all I have left...all there is...they're out there...no time...please..."

"I'll keep her safe," the man vowed as he looked warily to the trees where the arrows had come from. He swallowed hard, suddenly aware of his own mortality and fearful for it.

"Disappear..." Lyra moaned. "If only one could...the Brotherhood...it's them...they're everywhere...she's..." She gave way to several blood spattered coughs that caused a small sob to escape the blonde girl quivering beside her. "Promise to disappear."

Two shadows stepped out of the trees, one armed with a sickle and the other with two swords as two arrows whizzed past Alexandra's ears. Corvus did not wait; he grabbed the girl's wrist and pulled her with him, fleeing to his castle.

"Promise to disappear," Lyra groaned again. She let out a gasp as the two assassins sprinted past her, one letting out a curse as he did. She thought of poor Thomas, prayed for Alexandra and then begged the gods to allow Sam to forgive her before the axe came down, severing her head from her body.

Corvus ran as hard as he could, pausing just once to pick up the girl who was resistant and too tired to run anyway. He held her against his chest with both hands, pressing a leather, grey cowl in his hand against her as he did. He fled up to the bridge that led back to his castle, hoping that the guards would be quick to notice them. Alexandra watched over the Imperial's shoulder, fierce eyed as she saw the assassins come. They were moving faster, desperate now as Corvus neared the bottom of the hill. The Count hastened up it and began to shout for his guards as he reached the stone bridge. There two armoured guards jumped with a start, looking to their leader with astonishment. "Assassins!" Corvus barked at them before he began to run across the stone bridge.

Of all the mornings, why did everything have to happen at once? The dark haired Imperial could not even process what was going on now, too much had happened. He gave a gasp of relief as he made it the other side of the bridge and snapped at the guards there, "there are assassins chasing me, get them!"

The guards ran to obey as the Count fled indoors. He did not go to his quarters however, knowing they would be unsafe; instead he hastened back to where he had come from at the dawn. He passed confused maids, guards and butlers, ignoring them all as he awkwardly carried the girl through several corridors and passageways until he slipped through a door hidden in one wall, then down a trapdoor and into one of the many forgotten passages of the castle. There he deposited the girl onto the ground and doubled over with a pant.

Count Corvus Umbranox looked down at the cowl in his right hand and tried to take in what in Oblivion had happened to him today. It was why he was awake so early and alone. He had been a man ill at ease and unable to sleep as of late and in his wanderings through the castle he had come across a thief, but not just any thief. He had reacted out of alarm rather than sense and struck a single blow with his sword, down in the bowels of his castle in a secret passage he had thought known only to him. There the corpse of the fabled Gray Fox lay, just a man in a simple mask as Corvus has discovered, and not immortal as the tales had foretold. 'It would only be temporary,' he thought as he looked at it curiously, it seemed so simple and yet he could see the blue Daedric script down its middle and feel the power oozing from it. 'One could disappear with it; I could pretend to be the Fox...wait what nonsense is this? I'm not thinking right!'

He looked at the terrified girl, how old was she now? The unplanned, wayward daughter of Lyra Goldwine, infamous for a brief time in Kvatch as a child out of wedlock, how long ago had that been? 'Ten years,' he thought as he met her stare with his own calm, blue-grey one.

Corvus sighed, wondering if the assassins would seriously consider killing him to get to the girl. Did they even really want the girl or had it just been Lyra? Poor Lyra had seemed convinced her daughter was to die too. 'And now I'm a witness,' Corvus realised. He knew how the Dark Brotherhood worked, no loose ends. He looked at the cowl again, it was just a mask but they wouldn't expect it, no one could, perhaps it would be enough for him to sneak her out. 'Just a few days,' he reasoned with himself, 'I could get her out of Anvil and lie low for a while.'

He raised the mask slightly; it smelled of leather and something else, something dark, sweet and seductive. 'I'll just try it on,' he thought, 'maybe it's a blessing, the Gray Fox comes here the day I need a disguise. We can sneak out through the cave that thief came through and get out of the city, then find somewhere to get her new clothes and make her less conspicuous. By the Divines what am I thinking? What would my wife think? What in Oblivion is going on here? Why did Lyra come to Anvil? Why did the Brotherhood kill her? Is this really the mask of the Gray Fox or was he just an imposter?'

He tugged the mask on, just to see what it was like; it fit like a glove against his skin, soft against his cheeks as if it had always been designed for him. He felt a moment of suffocation and a sense of dizziness and immediately tugged it off.

"Who are you?" Alexandra croaked quietly at last.

"Count Corvus Umbranox," he answered plainly. It sounded odd, like neither the title nor the name fit him anymore.

She looked at him in puzzlement, cocking her head slightly as if she had not understood him. "Who?" she questioned.

"Corvus," he repeated, a little more firmly, "call me Corvus."

She stepped back from him nervously as the tears trickled down her face. "I want my mummy, please mister..."

'Mister?' he thought with a pang of derision. He had never been called that, not even in jest. 'It's shock,' he told himself, 'the poor girl isn't taking anything in.' He stood up from the wall at last, realising they had lingered for long enough. "Come Alexandra, it's not safe here." He looked down at the mask again. 'It couldn't hurt,' he thought before he tugged it back on.

Lucien LaChance tugged down his black hood and cursed quite colourfully into the morning air. It had taken two hours to escape the guards, sloppy for any assassin but unforgiveable for him. 'I will never get promoted if I carry on like this,' he thought hatefully as he glowered back at Anvil Castle.

The assassin had never failed a job before, not even his first, and he had not expected this job to be any different. Who could have predicted that the woman would make it all the way to Anvil? He knew he should not have relaxed when her son had tumbled into the river and thought Sithis showing him favour by making a kill for him. Now the girl was safe behind the walls of Castle Anvil, and worse, she was under the protection of the Count. What in Oblivion had he been doing wandering alone on the outskirts on his city and at dawn?

'Are the gods against me?' the assassin pondered dryly as he glanced back at his equally frustrated companions. 'I should have brought Vicente,' he scorned himself, 'he's a vampire, they wouldn't have been too quick for him. Well I may as well stake the castle out; I have another job to do here.'

"What's the plan?" the green scaled Argonian Ocheeva quipped. She burned with shame, blaming her poor archery skills for their failure. She would swear something had made her arrows fly off course or her bow had been tampered with but there was no evidence to support either concern.

"I have a job to do here," Lucien confessed quietly, "a Mrs Bellamont has been summoned by Sithis. You three must stay close to the castle and watch for the girl, like everyone in this world she must die but in her case she must embrace her fate sooner rather than later."

_The __Gray Cowl of Nocturnal__ shrouds the wearer's face in shadow. No light or magic of detection can penetrate its depths. To look upon __Nocturnal__'s face without the cowl is to view the depths of the void. A man would lose his mind to see it._

_The Lady of Shadows has seen fit to reveal that a curse is laid upon the Gray Cowl. Whosoever wears it shall be lost in the shadows. His true nature shall be unknown to all who meet him. His identity shall be struck from all records and histories. Memory will hide in the shadows, refusing to record the name of the owner to any who meet him. He shall be known by the cowl and only by the cowl._


	2. Chapter 1- One Fine Day

_Sorry the update took so long guys I've just moved house so that's why there was a delay :-) Thanks for the favs and reviews so far, please keep them coming, I'm always keen to know what people think of my writing, characters, plot etc._

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Seraphina Solita sucked in a deep breath before sinking gently beneath the surface of the pool just outside the entrance to the Elven Gardens District. As she shut her eyes and attempted to cease her breathing she contemplated that Armand would be furious with her. Stealing from the Talos Plaza District was risky and the thieves were only meant to go there at night time when contracted to but Umbacano had insulted the Imperial woman for the last time so she had decided on revenge. She contemplated calmly as she continued to hold her breath that Armand would not be the only one to berate her.

"Where did she go?" Matthias Draconis snapped as his boots came to a halt on the cobbled path. He glanced left and right angrily before glowering back at the two lesser guards who had followed anxiously after him. He had only just started guard duty, swapping with the weary Surius who had remarked that, as usual, it had been a slow night. Matthias had been expecting a morning to match, if she had at least waited until after midday then he might have had his coffee and been alert and ready for her!

"Damn you Usheeja!" the Breton cursed as turned about on the path. Just ahead of him, over a low, marble fence and down ten feet, a small bubble appeared in the decorative lotus pool on the left, causing a lotus flower to bob a little to the right. "Find her!" Matthias snarled at the other guards before he took a blind chance and ran up to the wooden gates leading to the Elven Gardens District; she could not have gone far.

The two guards exchanged a nervous glance before they separated, one heading to the left and the other to the right. It was shortly after that Seraphina dared to poke part of her head up, she took in a quick, sharp, damp breath through her nostrils as she listened carefully to the sounds above. Hearing no guards or suspicious murmurs, she raised the rest of her head and took in a large gulp of air before swimming to the path leading out of the pool. She scurried up, quick on her feet, wincing at the telltale damp footprints she left behind her.

Once the Imperial was out of the pool she was swift to study her surroundings before hurrying into the shadows of the towering, expensive buildings of the Talos Plaza District and heading south to where the Temple District lay. She moved to the outer paths of the posh district, grinning happily at the nobles who gave her a wide berth and commented loudly about her wet appearance. She paused briefly amongst some rose bushes to shed her soaked purple coat, it was too big for her anyway, before continuing on her way clad in a peasant's short sleeved, ruffled, cream top, a rundown, patchwork formerly blue waistcoat and tight, brown trousers with their loose, shredded ends shoved into her thieved black boots. It was not a memorable attire which was exactly the point, although she did stand out a little too much in the Imperial City's richest district as a poor beggar, once she was in the Market District she would blend in better.

With ease she made it through the wooden gates to the Temple District with only a few disapproving looks from the city guards who marked her as another beggar from the Waterfront District. Almost everyone in the city knew Seraphina Solita dwelled in dodgy quarters with the thieves and beggars when she was in the city but the guards did not think she had any worthwhile connections with the thieves and had caught her just once, five years ago, for the petty theft of gold silk shoes. The guards had been all set to throw her in the dungeons to rot for a few days but then an anonymous sum of gold had been paid for the shoes and her release and despite the stern Hieronymus Lex's desires to see her rot anyway, Itius Hayn had taken the more forgiving view that she was just a misguided teenager and he had accepted the payment and seen her released. Seraphina had yet to forgive the shoes' owner Erissare Arenim for reporting her to the guard and had been more than delighted when the Gray Fox had presented the shoes to her a month later as a gift. It did not matter that they were too narrow and small, even now, five years later, Seraphina still treasured the shoes.

The Temple District made Seraphina frown with scorn, it held the two storey houses of the middle class, all lined up together with tall, white pillars between them, jade green roofs and the outer ring of the district behind them, the trademark white columns of the Imperial City. It was not the hint of wealth that drifted from the Talos Plaza to the Temple District that irked Seraphina but rather the temple that gave the district its namesake. The Temple of the One was hard to miss, in the centre of the district it was a huge, greying, domed building with arched, stained glass windows. It also had two sets of steps ringing around it and its own path of carefully cleaned cobbled stones. Dedicated to Akatosh, it was a holy and highly respectable place, it should have welcomed everyone and yet when Seraphina had ventured there once she had found herself brutally shoved away by a guard and told to go back to the gutter. Funny how the gods only seemed to favour their rich worshippers.

The blonde Imperial turned away from the temple, stepping out of its vast shadow as she continued on her journey. She appreciated the early morning autumn sun even though it was not warm enough to take away the damp she had condemned herself to. She knew if she did not get dry soon she risked a chill but thought firmly that it was worth the Ayelid artefact she had pocketed. It was an odd looking statue and meant little to her, in fact she was seriously contemplating ditching it in the harbour just to spite Umbacano but knew that if she did she would earn a even worse scorning from the thieves.

She paused outside a familiar house and thought to herself, 'will he be awake so early? Maybe I should just head on, he probably wouldn't appreciate me dripping all over his floor but then...' A mischievous smile crossed her face as she headed towards the wooden door. 'It would be a good excuse to undress.'

She gave the wooden door a quick rap with its iron knocker, it was only an hour after dawn and highly unlikely that he was awake but she had to try. When she got no response she considered continuing on her way but it was hard to resist delaying the inevitable scorn, so she instead glanced about for onlookers and seeing none, she plucked out a lockpick and made quick work of his lock. Another thing to be frowned upon but he wouldn't tell anyone, though he would probably scorn her.

Seraphina smiled as she pocketed the lockpick and slipped into the house quietly, closing the door behind her softly. She crept along the wooden floor as delicately as she could, heading to the stairs, hoping to surprise him. She relished her stealth as she manoeuvred up the steps, familiar enough with them to know which ones creaked. At the top she opened a door to the left and stood there aghast, he was not alone.

"Roland?"

His beautiful gold eyes flashed open as he shot up in alarm. "Sera?" he stuttered in astonishment as the female beside him gave a low groan of complaint.

Seraphina looked at the handsome Breton with a teary gaze and murmured sardonically, "surprise," before she turned and fled back the way she had come, this time without attempting to be subtle.

Two hours later found the rash blonde back in the familiar territory of the Waterfront District cradling a cup of coffee and whiskey, which at this point was more whiskey than coffee. The plucky Bosmer Methredhel, who had given her the beverage, gave her a sympathetic smile whilst Armand Christophe continued to scowl at her and began berate her.

"Why would you steal from Umbacano?" the Redguard demanded angrily. He had arrived ten minutes ago after hearing of the Imperial's arrival in Methredhel's rundown shack.

Seraphina shrugged and quipped cynically, "why do you think I did it?"

"Because everyone is gossiping about it," he retorted as he folded his arms and continued to frown down at her, "a young woman clad in a purple coat outwitted Umbacano's guards during the dawn to steal an artefact, who else would be so reckless and stupid apart from you?" The Redguard let out a heavy sigh letting his disapproval be known. In truth for the eight years he had known the Imperial woman he had always seemed to find himself exasperated with her, sure she was a good thief but that was hardly a surprise given she had arrived to the Imperial City clinging to the trouser leg of the Gray Fox himself. With the master of all thieves to raise and mentor her it was no wonder she had shown real talent but she was reckless, bold, cocky and rash and far too keen of acts of vengeance and spite, abusing her skills for personal motives. "It is not the way of the Guild to act freelance," Armand reminded her, "taking such silly risks puts all of us in danger."

Seraphina rolled her eyes up at him though she knew he was right. The truth was she just could not deal with his lecture right now, Umbacano and his statue, it meant nothing, a moment of spite forgotten thanks to her sudden heartache.

"You need to take me seriously!" Armand shouted as he started to lose his temper with the woman. "If it weren't for the Gray Fox you wouldn't even be in this Guild anymore."

"Armand," Methredhel chided lightly as she looked at him pleadingly with her warm, brown eyes. "Sera knows she was foolish but she's just had a bad shock today, she doesn't mean to be rude."

"A shock?" Armand quipped dryly as he turned his glower on the elf. Methredhel was the Guild's newest member as of two months ago and she was already showing a lot of potential but her budding friendship with Seraphina was something the Redguard doyen though might hinder her. "Well I had a shock learning that one of the thieves under my jurisdiction decided to steal from the Talos Plaza in broad daylight and even let themselves be seen!"

"They didn't know me," Seraphina snarled before she took another swig from the mug and grimaced slightly at the taste, "none of that lot know anyone from the Waterfront."

"Yeah that's what they let you think," Armand chided as he turned his scowl back on the blonde, "and then they see you near some guards and suddenly it all comes back to them."

"Alright," Methredhel interrupted before Seraphina could snap something back, "please Armand, she's not thinking straight."

"I know that," the Redguard grumbled. "What happened anyway? Apart from the fact that you went swimming," he added sarcastically as he looked at the clothes drying before Methredhel's low fire pointedly.

Seraphina shrugged in the loose, brown, leather garments the Bosmer had lent her. The top hung at her chest, she was not as busty as the brunette elf nor were her shoulders as broad or her hips as narrow. Methredhel had a lean hunter's figure having hunted game with her bow before coming to the city with her two Bosmer friends to make it big; if not for her broad, muscular shoulders her figure would have been enviable. 'I bet if I had her breasts Roland wouldn't have looked twice at anyone,' Seraphina thought morosely as she gazed down at the remaining black liquid in her cup and took another deep swig.

"Roland cheated on her," Methredhel answered quietly as she gazed at her friend sympathetically.

Tears filled the blonde's emerald eyes once more and she only just resisted flinging the cup to the ground in her anger, reminding herself that it was her friend's cup and house and that such a childish and violent action would help no one. 'I should go back and smash his skull in,' she thought vehemently. As she pictured him however she knew she could not lay a finger on him despite what he had done to her.

"Roland..." Armand remarked in puzzlement. "Oh Roland Jenseric," he realised with a knowing shake of his head. "Come on Sera, were you not warned about him?" he queried with a frown.

"That was just a nasty rumour to make me break up with him," Seraphina replied angrily, "he wouldn't be with a married woman."

"Yes, he would," Armand answered flatly, though the sting had gone out of his voice. 'She's only twenty,' he reminded himself, 'and Roland has been her boyfriend for over a year now, her first serious boyfriend. I don't even think the dumb bastard meant to cheat on her, the way people talk it sounds like he really fell for Relfina DuBois.

Seraphina shook her head in disagreement before allowing Methredhel to take the cup from her. "Let's not talk about it anymore," the Bosmer suggested, "it won't do any good. Just relax while your clothes dry out here and think about what you're doing for the rest of the day, don't you have something important planned?"

"Yes," Seraphina agreed as her eyes widened slightly, for a very brief moment there she had almost forgotten. 'Ten years today,' she thought as she hid back a shudder. Normally she was not happy on this day, every year on this day she and he mourned the loss of their identities. She was usually depressed for the entire week as she thought of her mother butchered by arrows as they had fled from assassins and her brother screaming as he tumbled to his death in a river, this year however she was a little happier as she had not seen him in a few months.

He was the fabled Gray Fox, the one person who knew her true name, also the one who had given her, her current name, it seemed unfair that she did not know his true name but she knew that was not his fault. Just as he kept her secret so she kept his, that his mysterious nature was not a blessing but rather a curse. Over the past ten years they had embraced the role of thieves and whilst Seraphina had come to enjoy it she could tell that he, the esteemed leader of the thieves, ironically had not. There was a longing in his eyes and a sorrow in him even when he smiled but try as they might to break his curse neither of them could find a cure.

"Well focus on that then," the wood elf enthused, "and don't let your day be ruined."

Seraphina nodded whilst Armand tutted but withheld anymore lecturing. He had just realised what day it was, every year on this day Seraphina and the almost mythical Gray Fox met somewhere in secret and spent most of the day together. Armand did not know why and he only knew that they met because his superior had admitted to it one evening. He wondered if the Gray Fox would gift him with his presence later, the master thief had been spending less and less time in the city, in part because he had business in the other cities but also because Hieronymus Lex was making it his personal mission to catch the thief and had begun posting more and more guards on the Waterfront. There was no danger yet, and Armand surmised there probably never would be for the Gray Fox but for the rest of them it was starting to get riskier and the likes of Seraphina and her reckless actions were not helping.

"Alright, I'll leave you be," the Redguard lamented, "but no more freelancing Sera." He then added more kindly, "and don't get upset over Roland, you can do a lot better than him." With those parting words the Imperial City doyen exited the rundown shack at last to return to his own rotting, wooden hut.

Nearby, in the shade of the trees, a man clad in black stood watching the retreating Redguard with a slight frown. 'Can this really be the home of thieves?' he pondered dryly, knowing full well that it was. 'How ironic that those who can get their hands on coin quicker than anyone else should live in such squalor.' He tugged his dark hood up closer to his face; glad of it as a sharp wind was beginning to bring an autumnal chill to the day. He needed to be positive that it was definitely her within the shack, once that was confirmed it would all be a matter of timing. It was the same day every year though he had no idea why, a tradition he had taken a while to pick up on but once he had he had marvelled at the simplicity of it all. Who would have thought thieves foolish enough to have a routine one could exploit?

He stepped back further into the cluster of trees behind him as the door opened and out she stepped, tall and blonde with teary, emerald eyes she was mostly Imperial, though her honey skin was a paler gold than most people's and her ears were ever so slightly pointed betraying what the assassin suspected was a Breton heritage. He watched her slip into another hut and then leaned back against an oak tree casually as he prepared for another wait.

* * *

"That time of the year again?"

Seraphina nodded up at the suspicious, black clothed Breton leaning against the outer walls of the Imperial City with ease. There was a reason why his nickname was 'Shady Sam', he was so dodgy he couldn't even come into the city anymore without there being trouble and anytime he saw a guard he was quick to vanish. He was handsome, muscular, dark haired, blue eyed and charming when he wanted to be. Seraphina could understand why her late mother had fallen for him; to a sheltered noblewoman the bad boy Breton must have seemed irresistible. She recalled how Lyra had told them how they had met, how he had intruded upon an exclusive party Lyra was attending, surprising her on the balcony and spiriting her up onto the rooftops. Naturally she had screamed until he had protested that he had only wanted a dance. The guards had come too soon for that and he had been forced to flee, but he had found her two nights later and they had shared a dance in private in a garden under the moonlight.

With a romanticised and idyllic image of a charming, bold and brave father, Seraphina had been expecting all of that and more when she had come to the Imperial City eight years ago, seeking him out whilst the Gray Fox sought out the thieves in the capital city. She had been devastated to find a man more criminal than heroic with only a pleasant interest in his child and no desire to raise her. She had been grateful then for the masked thief who had plucked her up and promised her a home, not caring that she would have abandoned him without a moment's thought for the lawbreaking Breton.

Time and experience had softened Seraphina's opinion of the Breton and she had formed a relationship with him despite her initial misgivings but he was still not father material but alas nor was the Gray Fox and despite the thief's best efforts she had never regarded him that way and for the past three years she had viewed him in a much different way.

"Yes," she answered calmly as she turned her attention to the beautiful view before them, "it's been ten years." Down below the green hill the city stood upon was Lake Rumare, over it was a bridge leading to the hamlet Weye and beyond that were several paths of cobblestones and dirt, and a wide expanse of woods, forests, rolling hills, caves and ruins.

The trees looked like they were aflame beneath the afternoon sun, their leaves golden, amber, orange and crimson as their branches sagged with plump fruits, it had been a good season this year and they would be well prepared if winter proved harsh. 'Well the farmers and merchants and wealthy will be well prepared,' Seraphina scorned to herself, 'whilst the rest of us will go cold and hungry as usual.' When winters were long, lean and harsh it was hard to steal, people kept their larders tightly sealed and rarely left their homes, there was little opportunity to find homes empty to rob and even the best thieves found some of the locks on the food stores trickier than usual as people went so far as to invest in magical security.

Sam nodded sombrely; he had grieved Lyra only briefly when his daughter had come to tell him of her death and the death of his son. Finding out that he had a son and daughter had been a bigger surprise and it had, he had to admit, been a grievous blow to learn that his son was dead at the tender age of ten before he could even know him. It was unfair for the Breton to think more highly of his unknown son than his now familiar daughter and Sam knew that but he could not help it, he thought privately that he might have dealt with a son better. As a child in the Imperial City when Seraphina had seen him she had thrown tantrums at him, her lip would tremble, her eyes would water and either she would shriek, sob or simply go red and shake. Sam had been incapable of dealing with that and usually ignored her until the masked thief or a stern faced Breton in rags came to pull her away. Now she was easier to deal with but he did not feel he could share much with her.

"Do you need anything...special?" he queried casually in an attempt to change the subject.

"Same old Sam," she scorned with a small smile and a shake of her head. "No thanks, I've got all I need for now," she assured. Sometimes she found it hard to believe that she was related to him but when she looked at him she saw Thomas there, whilst Seraphina had inherited her mother's blonde hair and emerald eyes Thomas had inherited Sam's dark hair and blue eyes. "I'll see you later," she murmured as she turned away from him.

"Bye."

Her descent down the hill towards the stone bridge was at a leisurely pace as she savoured the cool afternoon air, breathing in the sweet scent of ripe apples mixing with the stale odour of the nearby stables. She felt sorry for the horses there; Sam had informed her that the orc who tended the stables, Snak gra-Bura, had eaten many of the four legged residents.

Her mood brightened as she neared the path, she could see a silver gleam up ahead and to the left, a pond near the hamlet Weye, it was small and a place for sightseeing as Lake Rumare was for fishing. It was Seraphina's favourite place though she only ventured there once a year. There she and the Gray Fox would feed the ducks, talk quietly about their lives and reminisce just a little about what they had lost. For the first four years he had reminisced more but when she had failed to take any of it in he had grown angry and eventually he had just stopped. It was a part of the curse, when the Gray Fox tried to talk about who he really was, who he had been, everyone near him seemed to grow deaf and become confused.

The pond itself he had found first, it was a reclusive place where he could stay with her in his thief garb without risking a run-in with the law or someone who was likely to report his presence. He had brought her there on the second anniversary of their first meeting, using feeding the ducks as a means to distract the then twelve-year-old from her grief. It had been a simple ploy but it had worked and had continued to work every year since. It was a distraction, a way to relax and forget even as they remembered.

Seraphina snapped out of her thoughts when she was rudely shoved on the bridge. She glowered up at the male Imperial guilty of the deed. He was just under six feet, brown haired, stern faced and clad in fine middle class robes. Seraphina recognised him as Pennus Mallius, one of the moderately wealthy men from the Temple District. He had not been born into class but rather had earned his coin from adventuring; something the born and bred middleclass people of the city did not let him forget. "Aren't you going to apologise?" he snapped at her.

"Are you kidding me?" she retorted angrily. "You walked into me!"

"Pah, I would never willingly cross paths with a filthy beggar like you," he answered with a glare.

"You weren't always rich," she replied heatedly as she matched his glare with her own, "and even if you were it gives you no right to look down on me."

Without warning he reached out and grabbed her by both shoulders and shook her hard. "Get off me!" she protested as she reached up with her hands to free herself.

"Learn your place beggar!" he snapped before he flung her to the ground. She hit it hard with a painful smack and was momentarily dazed and incapable of avoiding the kick that followed.

She let out a yelp of pain as she wondered in annoyance, 'what in Oblivion has gotten into him? He's not normally such an ass!' She rolled to avoid the next kick and jumped to her feet hastily, tugging out her dagger warningly.

"Threatening me are you?" he quipped mockingly though there was a nervous glint in his brown eyes. He glanced over his shoulder warily, there was a guard at the top of the hill coming towards the bridge but he wasn't near enough to be a witness. "That will get you thrown into jail," he growled at her as he looked back at her. "Two months I should think for pulling a weapon on a respectable middleclass gentleman like myself, you'll rot in there." He gave her a tight, mocking smile. "Unless you make friends with the guards but I think they would object to your diseases and you certainly must have a few, you're Roland Jenseric's wench aren't you?" He let out a sharp, taunting laugh. "Yes, you are," he realised as her emerald eyes narrowed and hardened at his jibes, "well then you will definitely have something since he's bedding more than you."

"SHUT UP!" she shrieked out in a fury as she felt the hot tears building up once more.

'I've gone too far,' Pennus thought as his eyes widened but then he reminded himself, 'no, she needs to strike a blow, that's what he said. Get her to hurt me and then she'll go to jail, it's not right but I really need the money.' He forced himself to laugh at her tauntingly. "Stupid beggar, he hardly had feelings for you, he's too good for you, chances are he just wanted a woman he didn't have to work for. You're filth!" He pushed her again and that was all it took.

In a rage Seraphina lashed out with the dagger, she cut his right arm deeply causing blood to splash along her lilac sleeve. Pennus yelped in pain, pushing back her hand and kicking her defensively before he could help himself. She retaliated with her free hand, punching away his arm. They moved too quickly, she stumbled, he staggered forward and the dagger sank into his chest before she could help it. Both their eyes went wide as the blade slipped in deeper like his flesh was butter; it was too fast and far too easy. She tasted vomit at her lips when she felt her hand become soaked with blood as the dagger pulled it towards his now damp chest.

Pennus opened his mouth as if to say something but only a gargle of blood came out. In horror Seraphina released the dagger and fled. She sprinted up towards the city, rubbing her hand against her top frantically as she did, ignorant to the guard who spied Pennus crumpling to the ground and hastened towards him.

From the shadows of the trees the assassin gave a quiet applause, his palms softened by the black gloves on them. "A fine performance Pennus," he jested quietly, "perhaps better than you had intended. Well you certainly earned your coin, a pity you will not be able to collect it but now I will have the bargaining chip I need."


	3. Chapter 2- An Assassin Amongst Thieves

The Gray Fox looked down at the young woman cradled against him and held back a weary sigh. He had tried so hard to protect her, inadvertently given up his identity so that he could fulfil her mother's last wishes and make her disappear, drifted from his home city to evade the assassins and keep them ever guessing and then finally allowed himself to be torn between Anvil and the Imperial City when she had finally found a home, just so he could keep an eye on her.

When she had not arrived at the pond as planned he had come to the Waterfront to search for her. He had found her lying on the floor of her miserable shack against the wall trying in vain to rub the bloodstains off her hands. "I didn't mean to do it," she rasped out as her eyes went wide and she shook her head in disbelief. "He kept provoking me...he confronted me on the road but it wasn't enough..." She broke off into sobs and shuddered.

"It was self defence," he retorted gently. 'She grew up so quickly,' he thought sorrowfully, 'ten years of our lives gone already. Ten years without my wife and home, ten years for Seraphina to be without her home, to be a fugitive of the assassins. She's a woman now and her mother never got to see it.'

"I only meant to warn him off..."

"I know," he assured as he pushed some of her sweat soaked hair back from her brow.

She paused as his brown gloved hand brushed against her forehead and glanced up at him with a tearful, longing green gaze. She met his own bright eyed, sky blue stare and sighed, those eyes always seemed to look familiar and yet there was a mystery to them, even to her. "What will I do?" she queried quietly.

"We will sort this," he retorted firmly. It had taken several tries, sobs, screams and ramblings but he had finally gotten the just of the story. A nobleman had accosted her on the path just outside the city when she was coming to meet him and provoked her into a fight; the fight had turned ugly then lethal. His darling Seraphina, only just turned twenty, had blood on her hands. He had known from her wild state that it had been accidental, of course it had, Seraphina had a temper but she was not a killer, but there was no undoing it.

She shook her head miserably and said softly, "I ruined everything. Today was supposed to be special...it's been so long, I'm lonely without you..."

He tensed slightly, wary of her tone. He had tried to be her guardian but it was so difficult when they were always on the run and he was jumping from city to city, forced to guide and lead a guild he did not want, then he had tried to be her father when her own had rejected her but that had been even worse, he was, despite his best intentions, more of a stranger to her than her real father. At least Sam had a name and an identity for her to know but the Gray Fox was a fable, a masked mystery, and without the mask he was a stranger. "I'll get water from the well and we will get you cleaned up," he said as he pushed her away as gently as he could manage.

She nodded weakly with a dejected look as she leaned back from him and wrapped her bloody hands about her torso tightly.

"It was a terrible accident but an accident nonetheless," he said reassuringly as he pushed himself to his feet. He stepped towards her door and paused with his back to her to remove his mask.

She watched on curiously, knowing he had taken his mask off before her several times and yet not once could she recall the face. Blue eyes and dark hair, that was all she could remember but she could never look at that face and know he was the Gray Fox, it was a wicked curse and as frustrating for her as it was for him.

'How can I love a man whose face I can never quite recall and whose name I forget no matter how many times he says it to me?' she wondered with a frown. 'Am I just in love with his reputation and legend like everyone else?' She shook her head scornfully. 'No, he helped me run from the assassins, he found me a home and he tries to keep me safe. He meets me every year to feed the ducks, sometimes we can even have a drink and he makes me laugh. I know him even if I don't but it's not enough.' She thought of Roland then and the tears burned anew. 'What would he think of me? Bad enough he spurned me but he would probably hate me if he knew what I had done.'

The Stranger stepped out into the cool afternoon, and headed round the back of Seraphina's shack to where the communal well stood. Despite still wearing his Gray Fox leathers no one blinked an eye at him, a few beggars were curious, wary even of the unknown man but no one once recognised him as the infamous thief. He stopped at the stone well and leaned against it wearily, the water was deep within the ground, the well shallow from usage and a lack of rainfall. It was the beggars and thieves only free source of freshwater that was uncontaminated, the water in Lake Rumare near the Waterfront was rife with pollution and waste and it was hard to get down to it to fetch water and even if one was successful the guards were quick to tax them for the privilege.

He started to pull up the bucket causing the rusting cogs to creak and the wooden bucket to bang against the stone loudly. 'I need to know if there were any witnesses,' he thought seriously, 'that's the first problem. Next is bribing them into silence if possible, if not then I need to get her out of the city, at least until the heat is off. Where will she go though? Anvil?' He winced at the thought, every time he went there he was heartsick for his wife, it was torture looking up at her and having her looking right through him like he was nothing and yet he could never stay away for long. 'No,' he decided firmly, 'I can't have them both there it would be too much.'

At last the bucket reached the top of the well and he poured it into another nearby bucket before letting it drop back into the well. He lifted the second bucket and hastened back to her shack. He opened the door, sat down the bucket and hastily put on the mask, avoiding her puzzled stare as he did. It stung to see even her green eyes look at him with confusion. She had come to know the Imperial known as the Stranger as a person, even started to remember him but she was completely incapable of reconciling him with the Gray Fox. Worse, she did not know him at all as Corvus Umbranox, Count of Anvil who had saved her on that fateful day ten years ago.

"Fetch a cloth and some soap," he commanded her gently as he sat the bucket down and rested on a wooden stool. The shack only had one room which contained a tattered blanket and flat pillow on the floor, a battered, wooden trunk with one lock on it, two wooden cupboards, a single table and chair, both with dents, scratches and wonky legs, and the stool. The Gray Fox loathed to see how Seraphina lived every time he visited but she had pointed out that better conditions would only draw suspicion upon her, it was why all the thieves of the city lived in squalor despite their ability to steal coin. They could steal only enough to live by and help the beggars with, taking for jobs for stealing was fine too but stealing too much for personal gain always drew suspicion and questions eventually.

Seraphina found a moderately clean cloth and an old half bar of yellowing white soap before pulling a chair out from the table and sitting on it opposite the thief. She was numb as she allowed him to soak the cloth in the bucket, rub the soap along it and then take her right arm in his hand and rub the cloth along it. At first he tried to be kind but the blood had started to dry and in the end he abandoned compassion for practicality and started to scrub the skin raw.

Finally, when he was certain every speck was gone, the Gray Fox abandoned the now reddish-brown cloth in the murky water with the soap and gave his protégé a small smile. "There, clean again," he enthused. The expression she gave him in response made his heart swell with pity; she was so pathetic looking, her green eyes filled with guilt and her lips sunk down in a deep frown. "I will see Armand," the Imperial remarked calmly, "and find out if there were any witnesses or if there are any rumours but I will not let him or anyone else know anything about it, if I can help it."

"And if you can't?" she quipped bitterly. "If he knows, if the guards know, then what?"

"Then you and I leave the city," he answered firmly as he reached out to her with one gloved hand and stroked her blonde hair. She leaned into his palm and he froze, unsure what to do, his fingers gripped round her cheekbone subconsciously in a light gesture prompting her to let out a soft almost inaudible moan. The thief's hand dropped away and he stood up hastily, feeling awkward and a little embarrassed. He realised he had been looking at her pearly pink lips when she had moaned, noticing how soft they looked, like petals. "I'll see you as soon as can," he assured, "try and get some rest."

She nodded miserably as he turned away from her and hastened out the door, once more slipping off his mask before he did.

After a couple of hours had past there was a knock on the door. The noise tore Seraphina out of her almost catatonic state on the floor and she looked to the door warily, fearful of guards. "Sera open up!" a familiar voice called.

Her emerald eyes widened but she remained where she was.

"Sera please!" the voice begged.

She knew she should ignore it, especially now after all that had happened, what if he knew? Yet she couldn't ignore him, even after all he had done. She pushed herself to her feet, walked slowly to the door as he continued to knock and call and at last unlocked it and opened it to him. "Roland," she greeted coldly.

Roland Jenseric was a tall, attractive Breton woodsman; in his early thirties he had short, raven black hair, a hint of stubble at his chin and dazzling, gold eyes. It was his unusual glittering gaze that had ensnared Seraphina, it was impossible not to be lured in by his promising amber stare. He opened his mouth, ready for an explanation probably, but Seraphina was quicker, slapping him hard before he could speak a single word.

The Breton reeled back in shock with a gasp of pain but managed to resist touching his now reddened cheek. "I'm sorry Sera," he said sincerely when he composed himself. "I really am, I wanted to tell you but I didn't want to hurt you."

Seraphina shook her head angrily as she feel the tears begin to burn anew, this she did not need on top of everything else. "I don't want to hear your excuses," she snarled heatedly, "or your lies! Just go away!" She slammed the door hard and immediately locked it, opening it had been a mistake. 'I can't deal with this,' she thought as the tears streaked down her cheeks and she looked about the shack anxiously, 'not now...I killed someone...I stabbed him so easily...Roland cheated on me...It's too much, everything's just falling apart!'

She sank to her knees and forced herself to tune out Roland's banging and pleas. It was ten minutes later than she heard Methredhel's angry shouts as the wood elf chased the Breton away before calling out to Seraphina with concern. The blonde Imperial wanted to answer the door to her friend but she was afraid the perceptive Bosmer would know that more than Roland was annoying her and that she would end up crying and admitting her ill deeds. So once more she ignored the banging at her door.

As the sun started to sink down beneath the horizon Seraphina finally drifted off into an uneasy slumber, half beneath her filthy blanket, her hair a loose tangle about her. It was as darkness finally took over that her door opened silently with ease and an invisible stranger intruded. He stopped to gaze down at the oblivious woman and smirked. 'Funny how even killers can look so innocent asleep,' he thought mockingly. Her golden hair surrounded her head and face like a tarnished halo, her creamy, pallid honey skin was spoiled with smudges of dirt, her bare throat bore a light bruise and a pale, pink scratch from where a necklace's sharp clasp had cut it, and her visible top betrayed her poverty further, showing loose threads, the start of replacement patchwork and a few grey stains. She was a beauty gone wrong.

He moved about her shack quickly like a shadow, she grunted only once causing him to tense and glance her way. With his movement his invisibility was gone and yet he still blended into the murky walls, a living being of darkness itself. Satisfied that she was still unaware of him he continued with his actions, smiling once it was done. He had a soft spot for theatrics though he so rarely took the time to be dramatic, largely it was unnecessary but in this he thought it would be helpful. If she was broken first, properly broken and paranoid of the shadows at every turn it would make it all a lot easier. Fear and guilt would consume her to the point that when he returned she would be willing despite herself considering it a punishment worthy of the crime. It was unfair that she should be a victim of his games simply because his real target was too tricky to ensnare but if he had cared for fairness he would have chosen a different line of work.

With ease Lucien LaChance drained another invisibility potion and slipped out the door back into the black of the night. Two hours later and Seraphina awoke. Mussed with sleep and aware that it was late rather than early and not a time to be awake, the young thief hunted in the gloom for a candle and then the two rocks she kept near it to create a spark. She banged them together five times before at last a spark caught on the candlewick. She picked up the metal handle as the white candle flickered to life, wondering again what had disturbed her as she swung the candle about her surroundings.

A scream escaped the young blonde and she dropped the candle. The flame snuffed out as the candle landed on its side and banged into two on the floor but not before Seraphina was able to take in the bloody graffiti on her wooden wall. There in large, crimson smears were the words- 'WE KNOW'.

The door was forced in swiftly as the Gray Fox came at the screams. He had been returning from a satisfactory search for information about Seraphina's deed and was walking in the shade of the trees of the Waterfront with Armand. The Imperial thief had learned that there was rumour spreading of a bloody murder of the wealthy man Pennus Mallius but that no one knew the culprit. Supposedly a guard had seen a woman flee from the scene but he could not identify her, only able to say that she was blonde, but he had not witnessed her commit the deed only seen her leave the body. Now the beggars gossiped that perhaps she had simply been traumatised by the killing or was fleeing from the murderer, with some coin the Gray Fox had encouraged this particular rumour to keep spreading.

"Sera!" he called out anxiously. He saw her sitting by her bed, stiff and wide eyed; she looked at him wordlessly before raising a single finger to point at the wall. He followed her gesture but in the darkness it was hard to make out what she was pointing at.

"Someone knows," she choked out fearfully.

Armand arrived behind the masked thief with a pant and queried, "what's wrong? Is she alright?"

The masked thief stepped to one side to allow the Redguard in as he continued to look to the wall in puzzlement. Armand stepped in with a torch in his right hand, illuminating the shack in a warm, orange glow. The words flared up in the light, a shining crimson brown, messy but readable, two simple and damning words.

"What does that mean?" Armand queried as he looked at the stain in confusion. "We know? Who are we? What do they know? Is it a prank?" he pondered.

"I was asleep," Seraphina murmured, "I...they must have done it then...but I didn't hear anything." She shuddered at the thought, as a thief she was meant to be more perceptive than the average person and yet here she had lain vulnerable to a complete stranger. 'Why just a warning?' she wondered nervously. 'They could have killed me or turned me in, anything. What's going on? Who did this?'

The Gray Fox took a step towards her, crouching down before her with a soothing look. "It's alright," he assured, "it's just a poor tasted joke."

She shook her head in protest, opening her mouth to object before she glanced at Armand and closed it again. He wasn't yelling accusations at her or glowering her way so he couldn't know, at least not yet.

"We'll wash it off in the morning," the Gray Fox assured.

"Yes," Armand agreed though he still looked confused, "in the mean time, maybe you should stay with someone else," he suggested, "at least until we can get a better lock for your door."

"That won't be necessary," his superior retorted, "I'll stay here tonight."

Seraphina looked to him in grateful surprise; he rarely stayed a night with her anymore.

"But there's only one bed," Armand objected. He didn't want the fabled thief thinking the Imperial City thieves couldn't do better for him.

"It's fine," the Gray Fox assured. "Now it's late, we can do no more this evening. Thank you for your assistance Armand and we will see you in the morning."

Armand wanted to argue against this dismissal but he knew better, instead he nodded and exited out of the shack reluctantly, taking the light with him. He shut the door behind him, banishing the outside world of the Waterfront and leaving the two Imperial thieves alone in darkness.

"No one knows anything," the Gray Fox was quick to assure the blonde, "I asked around. There are rumours about the murder but only one guard saw you fleeing the scene and he was too far away to identify you. Most people think you were fleeing from the killer or simply running out of shock."

Seraphina shook her head and stammered again, "someone knows, it's on my wall; why else would they do that? Someone knows."

He tugged off his gloves, set them on the floor and then embraced her close with his bare hands, pulling her tight against him. "No one knows Sera," he insisted, "this is just some cruel joke, probably ten other houses have the same message on their walls either to flush out the killer or just to spook people. It happens in the wake of a mysterious murder, people come claiming to be the murderer or accusing others just to garner attention and create more drama. Pay it no heed."

"No, they know it was me," she argued nervously, "they know but why are they taunting me like this? What next? What if they've gone to the guards?"

"That won't happen, I promise. Look this stupid prank has made you afraid, I understand but I assure you the guards cannot come to you, they have no evidence or witnesses, nobody knows a thing. Now, I'll stay the night with you so no one else will be sneaking in here to scare you."

"Stay the night?" she echoed as she looked up to him in the gloom.

"Er..." He felt his cheeks burn beneath the mask at the implication. It had been strange seeing her again, startled and crying at first it had been easy to mistake her for a child again but then the bloodstains had ruined that image. Then he had returned tonight and there had been no mistaking her for anything but a full grown adult. In the light of Armand's torch as afraid as she had looked he could see the experience and maturity in her emerald stare, the sternness in the jut of her jaw that a child could not master and then of course his blue gaze had, just for a brief moment, dared to take in the womanly curves scarcely hidden beneath a low cut and tattered, stained, cream shirt.

She snatched one of his hands in hers and pressed his bare palm down on her thigh and he realised she had only the long shirt on. Her thigh was smooth and warm beneath his calloused hand, toned from all the running she had done from buildings, guards, and owners of many trinkets and treasures, as well as the sneaking about in tunnels, corridors and sewers. She was slender from minimal food and toned from an active lifestyle like most thieves were, they did not hunger like the beggars but they rarely dined like the middle class and never supped like the nobility.

"Sera..." The protest was there on his lips but she silenced it with a kiss and, as desperate for company as she was, he allowed her to.

It was not right; they had never been this way. He continually thought of Millona and she had been enamoured with Roland but Millona did not even recognise him and Roland had replaced her. They were alone save for each other, as it had always seemed to be for the past ten years despite their best efforts to fit in somewhere and find a new life for themselves.

"It gets longer and longer," she murmured sorrowfully, "the gaps between your visits. It might be months before I see you again and I know, I know you have the ache there just like me. No matter how hard we try to fill it and no matter who with it doesn't work. I'm the only one who understands you and you're the only one who understands me. You're the only one who could forgive me for what I've done." She fell silent then as the tears trickled down her cheeks once more.

She was right; she was the only one who understood his curse and his eternal loneliness and heartache. Of course she could never replace Millona, no one could and he could never possibly be the one for her but at least there was no deception with Seraphina, no acting or faking. "You just want the pain to end and so do I," he realised even as he pulled his hand away.

"Yes, that's it," she retorted sadly, "ten years of agony, of never being who I should be, it's a curse we share. Let's share it then, and banish the pain, if only for a moment."

He shook his head. "No Alexandra," he dared to use her real name, "no pretending or forgetting it wouldn't be right." It was difficult to reject her, he was attracted to her he realised but their relationship was already so complicated, he did not want to make it worse.

She sighed and bowed her head, banishing his beguiling blue gaze. "You're right," she murmured bitterly, "it just hurts so badly."

"I know."


	4. Chapter 3- Sleep Like The Dead

Three days had gone by without an incident, Seraphina was finally starting to relax and think that maybe, despite all her fears, she really was going to get away with murder. It didn't feel right, every morning she awoke paranoid that today would be the day Lex came knocking on her door and every time she spied a guard she felt sick with guilt. It did not bother her to continuously get away with theft and even flaunt it in her would be captors' faces but murder, that was worse, that was final, that was a life gone, snuffed out like it was nothing. She had always understood why the Thieves Guild was against murder and she had agreed with it, murder was despicable unless it was in battle or an act of a much deserved revenge, people should pay for it. Naturally the thief felt more personally about it all because of her own dark past concerning the Dark Brotherhood. Now she almost felt like one of those monsters that had robbed her of a mother and a brother. She had killed just like them, so needlessly, and gotten away with it.

It was the early afternoon and she was strolling through the marketplace having just completed an easy job Armand had pressed upon her to distract her from her woes. The Redguard was not so naive to think it was only Roland bothering her but he suspected it was something to do with her connection to the Gray Fox rather than something more sinister. Against the norm, the master thief was still in town and Hieronymus Lex, a watch captain with an obsession for the thief, had gotten word. The streets had more guards parading them than usual, thieves found their sentences more severe and the beggars and locals of the Waterfront found themselves harassed on a daily basis. Seraphina had found herself bothered just once this morning but with no evidence they had soon left her alone.

The blonde Imperial paused at a market stall to eye up some shiny red apples. She felt a low growl of hunger creep through her and reached out to one, plucking it up nimbly. Feeling a tug on her sleeve she whirled around with alarm, half-expecting a guard there ready to accuse, instead she found the sunken grey eyes of one of the local beggars looking back. "I know," he told her accusingly.

"Wh...what?" she queried as she tugged her sleeve free and tried hard to be calm.

"I know," he repeated, louder this time.

"We all know." This accusation came from the left, a younger looking Breton beggar with curly, brown hair. "What you did by the waters."

"No," it came out as a protest, a denial.

"We know what you did!" the woman snapped, drawing several curious stares from passersby.

Seraphina looked about nervously, everyone was staring and listening. It was out there then, there had been witnesses, someone, somehow. She dropped the apple and turned to flee. 'Move slow,' she tried to caution herself as her heart hammered against her chest, 'come on now don't be obvious or the guards will come if they aren't already. Disappear, you're good at that.'

She felt hands grasping at her blonde hair wildly as the beggar woman started to shriek. "We know! We know!"

"We know what you did," the male repeated.

Seraphina tugged her hair free with a cry of, "let go!" The Imperial ran then forgetting all ideas of subtlety.

Lucien La Chance stepped out of the shadows of the stalls with a pleased smirk. 'Marvellous fools,' he thought with delight as he looked to the puzzled beggars, 'yelling nonsense for coin, it is amusing the things people will do for money without understanding when they are desperate.' He stepped up to the nervous apple seller and scrutinised his wares before selecting a fresh red one and offering a single bronze coin for it. The seller took the coin with a murmur of thanks and a nod.

Seraphina finally remembered her skills of secrecy when she escaped from the Market District. For the rest of the journey back to the Waterfront she melted into the crowds with ease, snatching up a cloak resting on a bench effortlessly and hurrying off with it before the owner could notice. She slipped the red cloak over her shoulders, knotted it closed at her throat and bound her hair into a loose ponytail before continuing on her way, only just avoiding the stern faced Hieronymus Lex.

Twenty minutes later found the pale faced Imperial back in her shack, finally able to let out a brief sob before she tried to compose herself. 'I have to leave,' she thought anxiously as she looked about her meagre surroundings, 'it's only a matter of time before everyone finds out; I have to go before that happens.' She thought about what to pack but nothing mattered, her possessions were of a practical nature save the shoes the Gray Fox had once stolen for her, but they could remain where they were hidden, she could not burden herself with them now.

Seraphina tugged up one of the floorboards and lifted out the strongbox concealed under it. After fiddling with the locks, she tapped it twice underneath revealing a false bottom in which she kept her coin. She tugged out every last one, gathering them up in a leather pouch that she fastened tightly closed. After that she replaced the strongbox in the ground and put the floorboard back in place before changing into her practical brown leathers and sheathing a dagger at each side. She then placed the pouch of coin securely at her breast inside her shirt and headed to her door.

She paused for a moment as she wondered where he would be. Even she did not know where the famed thief hid when he was in the city. He had no place to call his own, part of his curse, and took refuge where he could find it, sometimes with her, sometimes with Armand, and sometimes with another. Once he had even dwelled with Sam on the outskirts of the city, Seraphina privately thought he had been attempting to get to know her father for her, or perhaps trying to persuade Sam to get to know her.

She opened the door and headed to Armand's shack first. She rapped the door impatiently, glancing over her shoulder a couple of times, wary that the guards might already be on their way. The Redguard opened it with a frown and rubbed his brow wearily.

"Is he with you?" the Imperial queried bluntly.

"Just back," Armand admitted as he pushed open the door to grant her entry.

He sat within, smug about a recent heist on the guards' tower, specifically in Hieronymus Lex's quarters. He looked down at the coin and ornamental dagger he had pilfered with a measure of pride. At times he sympathised with the guard, he was after all just doing his job and in his way trying to make the city a better place, but when he had learned that Lex had called him a coward who was all talk and accredited his deeds to other thieves he had been unable to resist making a point. He considered that leaving the signature 'GF' on his desk had perhaps been a little unnecessary and a tad cheesy but it was rare that he got to enjoy the elements of his curse and he could not resist some fun now and again.

He glanced up as Seraphina entered and spied the fear in her eyes. His joy was immediately banished as he pushed his ill gotten gains to one side and stood up to greet her. "Sera, what's wrong?" He was quick to the point.

"Can we talk privately?" she queried quietly.

He nodded as Armand gave a miffed look but said nothing as they exited his shack. He had accepted for a long time now that theirs was a relationship no one was ever going to intrude upon, whatever secret they shared it was a dark and important one.

They headed back to Seraphina's shack and once within she immediately turned to the older thief and confessed what had happened in the Market District. "People know!" she hissed out in alarm. "The beggars started accusing me in front of everyone! I have to get out of here!"

"Calm down," the Gray Fox urged as he reached out a gentle hand to squeeze her left shoulder. "What exactly did they accuse you of?"

"They told me that they knew what I had done by the waters, they just kept saying it over and over again, 'we know, we know'! It was just like that writing on my wall." She broke free of him and shuddered. "I have to leave the city, I know I should face justice for my crime but I'm a coward and I can't."

"No," he argued immediately, "you're no coward Sera, just scared of this city's idea of justice and who could blame you? It was an accident, you have to understand that, he provoked you and you defended yourself."

She shook her head in protest. "No, I went too far, I could have stopped, I should have but I didn't. The guilt has been driving me mad, part of me was relieved when they said they knew, I thought, at last, the secret's over." She looked up at him with a serious stare. "Do you understand that? It's just one secret too many, I can't deal with it, not on top of all the others."

"Sera it's not your fault," he said firmly with a sympathetic stare, "and I know you feel guilty and you want to be punished but don't you see, you're already punishing yourself with your guilt and paranoia, don't wish for more on top of that. Look, I'll get you out of the city if that's what you want, we will go to Bruma for a few days until you put your mind at ease and when I'm certain that rumours about the murder have stopped you can come back."

He wondered privately how he would have judged her if he had still been a nobleman of Anvil. 'I would have condemned her,' he realised with a feeling of self-loathing, 'no questions or trial, I would have saw a thief and assumed her a murderer too. There's so much about this world I didn't understand when I was a count and even after ten years I still don't know it all but I know enough to hate it.'

"Alright," she agreed quietly with a nod. It was better than her plan to simply wander Cyrodiil until she found somewhere safe. She had only ever known the Thieves Guild since that fateful day her mother had died, without them she was directionless, the Imperial City was the only home she had known for the past ten years even if it wasn't much of one, she had friends here and a family in the thieves.

"Capital," he retorted with a small, brief smile, pleased that she was willing to see some sense. "Get your stuff ready and we will prepare to go."

"I am ready," she retorted quickly, her eagerness to leave showing in her eyes.

"Alright, well wait here while I tell Armand."

"What will you tell him?" she pried.

"That I am sending you on a mission for the Guild," he replied calmly, "perhaps I may even just do that, I am sure there are plenty of marks in Bruma."

She nodded again. "Alright." It could be a nice change she thought, Bruma was pleasant enough according to Methredhel and Seraphina had always wanted to see it.

He left swiftly, darting back to Armand's with ease. It took only ten minutes to explain things to the doyen; he was too used to the Gray Fox's irregular comings and goings to be bothered by it and to in awe of the man to ever query his decisions. He raised an eyebrow at the mention of Seraphina going on a lone mission to Bruma and knew there was something else to it but did not question it. Instead the Reguard had agreed to keep an eye on her shack and assured that she would always have a place with the thieves of the Imperial City, adding quietly to himself that this was only because she had the Gray Fox's favour. Though Armand did like the wayward blond he did not think she belonged with the thieves, yes she was skilled but she was always getting herself into trouble and letting her emotions get the better of her. He decided quietly that it might be good for her to get out of the city and his way for a while.

The Gray Fox returned to Seraphina with a small smile before murmuring, "I will have to meet you outside the city; it would be too risky to travel with you. Head to the gates and wait by Sam, I will see you there." She nodded her consent and he left.

Half an hour later found the blonde with Sam fidgeting with her hair as she awaited the thief's arrival. Sam was, as usual, only mildly curious about her presence and did not bother to query about what she was up to. When the Gray Fox finally arrived, slipping out of the trees like a ghost the Breton merely frowned before glancing from him to Seraphina.

"Greetings Sam," the thief remarked quietly as he stepped up to the pair. He had found it just as hard to believe as Seraphina that this lawbreaking Breton was her father. He had not known Lyra well but he could not fathom how she had fallen for him, though he now understood why she had refused to ever admit his identity to her father, there was no way Count Goldwine would ever have understood or accepted it, or forgiven Lyra for picking such a lowborn.

"Hello thief," Sam retorted evenly. He had only mistrust for men who kept their faces hidden and a special disliking for this particular thief ever since he had stayed in his shack once and dared to lecture him about parenting, Sam finding out that the thief had no children of his own apparently hadn't mattered much to the Gray Fox.

"Can we go now?" Sera queried as she spared Sam a scowl of disapproval.

"Yes," the thief retorted calmly as he looked to the road, it was clear for now. It would have better and smarter to travel with his mask off but Sera was frightened and he was foolish enough to let his affection for her make him keep the mask on to reassure her. If he had come without it then as far as she was concerned he would not have come at all, the Stranger was a companion, she accepted that well enough but she could not understand that he was the Gray Fox too. No one could, with the mask on he was one man and with it off he was another, a nameless nobody. That was the seduction of the mask, with it on he had an identity and he was a somebody, he was infamous, beloved, feared and even worshipped, in ways it was far superior to being a count and yet he could not reconcile himself with this despite the years that had gone by. He just wanted to be Corvus again, to have his wife and his life in Anvil back; he did not even care to be a count or to live in a castle, to just have a name and his beloved, that would be more than enough.

They moved quickly and subtly, low in the grass and close to the trees, blending in with their surroundings as best they could, applying tricks of stealth known only to thieves. They made it to the bridge without incident. Spying a stain of blood on it caused Seraphina to stop in her tracks with a shudder. There, there she had murdered a man in cold blood, there she had become a murderer, and there she had become no better than those who had killed her family.

"Come on," the Imperial thief urged as he took her right hand tightly in his own and pulled her on. They hurried through Weye and started moving near the coast of Lake Rumare, heading in a northerly direction.

"I can only go so far with you," the Gray Fox confessed as they travelled, "if people see me it will make things difficult but when I am not with you he will be."

"The Stranger," Seraphina murmured, wondering for the umpteenth time why the mysterious Imperial did not have a name.

The thief nodded as they weaved through trees and past bushes. It was going to be a long journey, made all the more troubling because he was stupid enough to make it with his mask on. He knew the moment they reached a village or even a farmhouse he would have to remove the mask and be gone to her and he wondered if it was really worth it. 'I could travel freely without the mask and still be with her,' he told himself, 'so why then do I do this? It's not as if she knows me with it on, it's still just a guise and a title, there is no Corvus!' He scowled in frustration. 'The Stranger is one title, the Gray Fox another, I am no one and nothing to her or anyone else. I should be Corvus, Corvus Umbranox, that forgotten man, what if I forget him too?'

As they journeyed, stopping to battle a couple of wolves and then a moody boar, all of which they handled with ease, the thief considered his longest plan, to end the curse. Ten years now, it had seemed futile for a couple of those years but he had never given up and now at last he thought he might have an answer, a chance. There was a way, a slim, risky and almost impossible way but there was a way. He looked to Seraphina wondering when he should tell her, pondering that perhaps he should ask for help with the matter. He could not do it alone after all. If the curse was removed he could be known to her and she could return with him to Anvil. He paused at that thought. 'To be what?' he wondered. 'Ten years ago I thought this curse would only last a year at the most and that we could go to Anvil and be a family, Millona and I could never have children after all...but it's not like that anymore. Sera is in love with me or an idea of me and I've let that happen.' He sighed, prompting the blonde to glance his way.

"Is something wrong?" she queried softly.

"No," he lied.

Seraphina sensed the lie but she did not press the issue, long used to his moments of anger and despair, at first they had been few then common but lately they had grown less frequent and she wondered if the thief had finally decided to accept his lot in life. 'It could be worse,' she thought to herself, 'for both of us, I could be dead like mother and he could be an ordinary thief, if one has to be cursed as a criminal being the most impressive of them isn't the worst thing.'

* * *

It was late in the evening when Seraphina and the Stranger arrived at Roxey Inn, a two storey inn of wood built on the Red Ring Road. The downstairs reception and dining room were busy enough with a drunk Breton mumbling to himself about blurry vision, a group of four rough looking rogues and warriors, and a Redguard who had eyes only for the fierce faced Nord innkeeper.

The rogues all looked up warily as Seraphina entered with the quiet Imperial, and a balding male Breton at the table let out a leering whistle. Seraphina took the time to give the man a wilting look of scorn before the Stranger pushed her on to the counter.

"Now Brucetus," another Breton chided his companion, "there's no need to be so rude."

"I wasn't," the balding male scoffed, "I was being complimentary."

The second Breton tutted, leaned across the table and remarked quietly with a grin, "let me show you complimentary."

Seraphina heard the quick screech of wood on stone as the Breton stood up and she gave him just the quickest of glances. She had already observed that all four of them were armed and wearing decent armour, there was only one exit, which also served as the entrance and three potential neutrals, who she doubted would suddenly take her side should the mercenaries choose to get rowdier.

"Good evening," the Stranger greeted the Nord innkeeper stiffly, "could we purchase two rooms please?" He had already gathered from the small size of the inn that the rooms probably weren't very big and to garner more business the innkeeper had probably chosen to have several single rooms instead of a few doubles or a few of each. It meant she could charge couples and groups for separate rooms instead of them saving money by sharing. It was an obvious tactic employed by many inns along the road; some even offered bedrolls for an extra cost should people insist on sharing or should all the beds be occupied.

The Nord nodded back calmly and retorted sharply, "twenty gold each."

"That's a bit excessive," Seraphina was swift to scorn.

The Nord gave her a cool, brown eyed look of annoyance. "Take it or leave it," she snapped back. Her gaze softened just a fraction then and she grumbled carelessly, "business is slow alright."

"Why?" the Stranger pried curiously turning her gaze back on him.

It was then that the Breton rogue finally stepped up behind Seraphina. "Pardon me," he said politely, "but could I offer you a drink as an apology on behalf of my crude friend?"

Seraphina glanced him over, he had the better of armour of the group and probably the biggest sword too, he was a sly smirking Imperial oozing with confidence, taller than the Stranger and possibly older, with greying black hair and smooth, golden brown skin. "And you are?" she quipped with disinterest though a sharp pang ran through her as she thought, warily, that he looked familiar.

"Claude...Claude Maric," he introduced proudly as he scrutinised her with his dark stare. "Hmm I should like to think if we had met before I would remember you and yet whilst I cannot recall your name, your charming face does look familiar."

If his words did not suddenly put her on edge they might have sickened her but as it was Seraphina was all too cautious now of people who seemed to know her. 'Did he see me too?' she wondered in annoyance. 'Do I have to wonder at every face that glances twice at me? Probably he's just seen me about the marketplace but do I take that chance?'

"I do not know you sir," she retorted frostily before turning from him back to the counter.

"Well that is no reason to reject my offer of friendship," he scorned at her back as his smile widened.

The Stranger turned to him with an icy look of warning. Claude had dismissed him as a harmless, shabby looking Imperial when he had entered the inn but as he looked at his wintery blue eyes he spied something dangerous there and knew that the man was far more than he appeared. The Imperial rogue studied the man swiftly, he had no armour and if there was a weapon it was concealed, he should have been no threat and yet something in his stare made Claude uneasy.

"My friend and I simply want a place to rest," the Stranger addressed Claude calmly, "no drinks or friends, though we thank you for offers of both but we are tired."

Claude nodded as he resisted the urge to take a step back, knowing how his followers would interpret that. "Very well, I apologise for any offence, have a good evening."

The Stranger nodded back and Claude returned to his companions who had watched the encounter intently and now looked at Claude curiously. "Not your type?" Brucetus queried mockingly as he leaned back in his chair and glanced over at Seraphina again. "Well I certainly like blondes especially feisty ones!" He let out a loud laugh.

"Feisty?" the only woman at the table, a tough looking Nord, queried in puzzlement. "Now how do you know she's feisty?"

"I've seen her at the marketplace a few times," Brucetus retorted with a shrug, "she's the one Umbacano complains about, thinks she's a thief but he's no proof."

"Is that right?" Claude queried thoughtfully as he glanced back over at the woman with fresh suspicion.

The Stranger accepted the keys for their rooms and led the way upstairs, the two were on the left side of the hall beside each other. He unlocked the door to Seraphina's room first; it proved to be a narrow and dark chamber with dust gathering on the only piece of furniture in the room, the bed, and cobwebs hanging low from the ceiling. She stepped into it with ease whilst the Stranger looked at it aghast. She turned and caught his horrified stare and smiled. "There's worse," she reminded him.

He nodded glumly though he doubted it. "Goodnight Sera," he said politely as he held out the key to her.

She accepted it, her hand brushing along his briefly though it was unintentional. She paused at the gesture and looked up at him guardedly, staring into his cool blue gaze. It was so like the Gray Fox's ensnaring stare, cool and crisp like a winter's sky, filled with so much grief and pain, and yet... 'He's not him,' she thought as she dropped her hand and bowed her head. 'He's just some strange friend of his that he can't or won't explain,' she thought as she murmured, "goodnight."

He stiffened slightly, loathing the confusion in her emerald eyes, years ago twice he had shouted at her, 'I'm Corvus' and then even 'I'm the Gray Fox' but she had not taken it in, looking at him vacantly instead and then in astonishment when he had broken down into angry sobs. She had attempted to console him but it was difficult to console someone who was effectively a stranger to her. 'Soon,' he vowed as he turned away and headed to his own bed, 'soon she and everyone else will know Corvus Umbranox again.'

Seraphina locked her door immediately before lying down on the hard bed and sliding under the thin and filthy blanket. She was too tired from travelling to be bothered about her surroundings or the lack of light and wanted no distraction from a flame and the shadows it made dance along the walls anyway. Within the hour she was asleep.

The activities of the inn quietened down just two hours after midnight as the now relatively drunk group of mercenaries staggered up to their own beds. The sound of their heavy boots and loud, drunken murmurs awoke Seraphina and the Stranger briefly before they realised what the noise was and drifted back into sleep. An hour after this and the inn garnered a new arrival, a shadow unseen by the tired innkeeper who crept up too soft for even the mice to notice.

This new arrival knew exactly where they were going, pausing outside one door pointedly and making sharp work of the simple lock with ease. The door opened without a creak and closed just as gently. Deciding that theatrics might serve him well again he took the time to light a single candle and lift it up, holding it low below his shrouded face.

"You sleep rather soundly for a murderer."

Seraphina awoke suddenly at the words, wide eyed and ready to let out a scream even as she grasped for both her daggers.

"I would suggest listening to what I propose before you make a sound you might regret Seraphina Solita," he continued calmly with a small grin.

She knew his uniform well though she did not know him, the image of men and women in hooded black robes had haunted her for many years now. It was possible he was not one but highly unlikely, few would be foolish enough to don an outfit so heavily associated with such a dark and dangerous group. She held her tongue out of fear though part of her contemplated risking it all and lashing out with her daggers. She knew the reputation of the Brotherhood however and knew he would strike her dead before she could even draw a blade.

"You prefer silence, then?" he quipped tauntingly as he raised a dark eyebrow. "As do I, my dear child. As do I. For is silence not the symphony of death, the orchestration of Sithis himself? Ironic, then, that I come to you now as Speaker for the Dark Brotherhood. My name is Lucien Lachance, and my voice is the will of the Night Mother. She's been watching you. Observing as you kill, admiring as you end life without pity or remorse. The Night Mother is most pleased... That is why I stand here before you. I bear an offering. An opportunity... to join our rather unique family..."

Her body turned to ice and her green eyes went as wide as saucers as she wondered if this was just a terrible nightmare fashioned by Vaermina. She wanted to speak, to protest her innocence but she had none to protest and yet this could not be right either. 'He knows,' she thought in horror, 'everyone knows! I tried to outrun it and yet the truth has followed me, there is no escaping this terrible deed.'

"So, I have your rapt attention. Splendid. Now listen closely for your situation is rather unique Sera."

She shook her head in protest at last as Lucien stepped swiftly out of the way as the door was forced in. The Stranger rushed in with a sword at the ready and immediately placed himself between Sera and the Imperial who had intruded upon her.

"Ah, not quite who I was hoping for but you will do," Lucien addressed him with a wide grin.

"Do for what?" the Stranger demanded as he held the sword out threateningly. "Who are you and what are you doing here?"

"Recruiting," Lucien retorted simply, "would you prefer the alternative?"

"I'm not a murderer," Sera choked out at last as she stood up with her daggers out, ready to battle back with the Stranger.

"No?" he queried again in a voice that Sera knew was mocking and yet it sounded sincere. "The Night Mother seems to think otherwise_, _as do several residents of the Imperial City. You can both be foolish and attempt to cut me down and add to your short but growing list of victims," he remarked, still ever calm, "but it will not undo your deed nor will it hide it. I know, the Night Mother knows and I am very certain the guards of the city will soon know too."

"Certain?" the Stranger quipped bitingly. "Is this blackmail?"

"No my nameless friend," Lucien answered him swiftly as he turned his golden-brown stare his way. "It is an offer. Choose to be welcomed by the Dark Brotherhood or cut down by them Seraphina, for we do not leave loose ends."

"Loose ends?" the Stranger queried in outrage. "What do you mean?"

"Killers who do not belong to the Brotherhood are very much loose ends," Lucien answered with a glimmer of malice in his gaze.

"I'm not a killer!" Seraphina snapped as she trembled in anger. "I'm not! It was an accident, I won't do it again!"

"It can start that way," Lucien commented smoothly.

"No!" she protested again with a shake of her head. "It was an accident," she insisted.

"And is that what you will tell the guards?" he quipped as he turned his stare upon her at last. "More importantly, will they believe it?"

"We will take our chances," the Stranger growled out warningly.

"Against the Imperial City legion and the Brotherhood?" Lucien folded his arms and gave the Stranger and Seraphina a taunting smirk. "If that is your choice Seraphina very well but I warn you now, it is the wrong one, if you wish for life I am the only chance you can take."

"Why?" she demanded. "If I was good at killing you would not have found me and there would be no witnesses, what use could I be to the Brotherhood?"

"One can always learn to kill better," Lucien retorted as if they were discussing learning how to cook, "in truth there is a spark in you and it did not go unnoticed, a dark spark only some in Cyrodiil have, people can kill by accident, luck or fluke, that is true, but very few have it in them to make an art of it, a skill, a talent, and you are one of them. You were sloppy, beginners usually are, and clumsy but that can all be smoothed out with training and experience."

"No," she answered flatly, "no I won't kill again; I can't have blood on my hands."

"You already do," the Imperial assassin reminded her, "and that will never be washed off. You can never undo it so you may as well add to it."

"Why are you pushing for this?" the Stranger demanded angrily. "She is unwilling and unskilled at your...profession," he spat the word out hatefully. "Why not find another who wants to join?" He was beginning to sense that Lucien had not drawn his sword out of cockiness but certainty instead, somehow the assassin knew his life was safe and that he would win this battle with words and much as he wanted to prove him wrong, the Imperial thief knew as well as Seraphina that members of the Brotherhood had their reputation for a reason. This seemingly overconfident, glib tongued man could probably kill him and Seraphina both with breaking a sweat or earning a single injury upon his person.

"The Dread Father works in mysterious ways and the Brotherhood and I like to follow that example," Lucien answered cryptically. "If you want the truth of the matter send your leader to me, the one called the Gray Fox."

"So that's what this is about," the Stranger growled out, letting his fury show, "you want to get to him! Why? To kill him?"

"No, nothing so dramatic," Lucien scorned, "but it is not a meeting for the dark hours of the morning. Seraphina I will not give you this choice again, come now and join a family with bonds forged in blood and death or choose to make an enemy of the Brotherhood and the city."

"Wait!" the Stranger protested before Seraphina could answer. "I can get the Gray Fox, just wait!"

"No," Lucien answered coldly, his gaze narrowing slightly as he lost some of his charm, "not now, not yet. She joins the Brotherhood first then after a time the fabled thief and I will talk."

"You bastard," the Imperial thief snarled as he swung his sword downwards in a rage, letting it clang off the wooden floor loudly. "You want her for a bargaining chip that's all! Look, you don't have to do this, he will talk to you without her, I swear."

"I do not doubt it," Lucien murmured, "but there are other things to consider, things he may not do so easily but I have already said too much and wasted too much of a good morning. Seraphina?"

His eyes were upon her once more, almost like Roland's, warm and golden like honey but tainted with a drop of light brown, there was a cruelness at their edge, he had no remorse for what he was doing, no concern as to whether she chose to bloody her hands further or risk her own death. She felt helpless under his stare and loathed herself for feeling so weak. What could she do though? If she refused to join he was likely to cut her and the Stranger down here and now and if he did not there would be others, others pointing and grabbing at her like the beggars on the street, painting her walls with accusations and worse, the guards would find her. It was not a nobody she had killed but a rich man who probably had influential friends and heirs who would bay for her blood, hired bounty hunters would come for her along with guards and assassins, she would always be watching over her shoulder as she had been the whole time she had been on the road from the city.

'I cannot live like that,' the blonde realised, 'I would not last long and it would be a miserable life to live anyway. I need time, time to think of a way out of the mess if there is one.' She thought of her poor mother and Thomas and felt sick at the thought of joining the same group who had cut them down. 'Will I really stop looking over my shoulder with them?' she wondered sardonically. 'Pondering if her killers are there in the shadows, if one of them might look upon me and know my face. It was so long ago, ten years, and I never knew if they were even after me really. No, this one has found me, if he has others could have, they know me not as Alexandra.'

"I will go with you," she answered stiffly, earning a choked out gasp of horror from the Stranger who turned to her in shock and dismay, "but I will not forget the thieves."

Lucien shrugged. "Stay with them too if they will let you but if I am not mistaken they, ironically, have a code concerning killing, so strange for thieves to attempt to have morals," he mocked. "For now however, you and I must take our leave."

"To where?" the Stranger snarled.

"That is not for an outsider to know," Lucien retorted bluntly as he opened the door and beckoned Seraphina forward with a pallid hand.

'Onwards to death's beckon,' she thought dryly as she took a tentative step forward and then another. She paused and looked to the Stranger and said softly, "let him know what happened and that I was not willing. I cannot outrun all of Cyrodiil, nor he, it is not possible. I know if there's a way out of this he will find it."

He nodded weakly as he thought bitterly as to how untrue her words were. 'Even she wants to believe in his myth though she knows it is just that,' he thought angrily. "Farewell Sera."

"Farewell."


End file.
